Thursday, July 28, 2011

Dear Mr A Bhatia

Please consider this my Annual Work Plan for the forthcoming year.

We have not interacted at length. But having worked in the Publishing Division as a creatively designated part of a small yet dynamic unit, I have, on good days, and there have been quite a few, felt disinclined to consider myself as a cog in a manufacturing concern with little other than monetarily palpable gains. Considering the company's reiteration of a common vision for common profit, however, I have made associations that perhaps share a feeling of loyalty, indeed also monetary culpability, to the common vision.

In view of this, my Key Result Areas have been assessed by my Executive Publisher with Measures that included Timeliness, Quality, Persistence and Accuracy, for which regard can, arguably, only be mutual.

In the light of our recent shift to Cyber City, Gurgaon, the imperative to measure variables of work fascinate me no less, Sir, than the glass partitions of the ventilation-free spaces that require many costly air-conditioners and diesel-run generators to provide comfort and cooling to those that inhabit them.

Are these measures revealed in the unique visions of the companies that share our building -
Zara, sourcing high-street fashion from countries where small retail is increasingly felt to be unfashionable and which could be made part of a global market for clothing that is unavailable to those that stitch them; Cargill, manufacturing BT foods for a country where vast amounts of irrigation cost only environmentally and socially; Shell, where Corporate Social Concern is redefined for litigation in case of oil spillage?

I havent ventured to the floors below Sir but i see the apathy required as a Training for which I cant say I wish to qualify.

I do however appreciate the gradual distaste I hope to develop for McDonald's, Subway and Pizza Hut, that the food court inspires.

In conclusion, if our Measures for KRA were revised to power dressing, lobbying and whittling conversations for a sharper-toned yet safe conviviality, I pray to not measure up.

Regards

A star is not born when the light of adulation obliterates the shadow of memories. It is born of hope.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011


So my sister observed with some benevolent depth: Never miss an opportunity to be silent, ancient Chinese saying. It reinstated an admiration for ancient proverbs and the Tao, but on retrospect, it made me retrospect, and not work.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Care to gauge?

So this started out with a spellcheck for Gauge, which revealed the following insightful examples:

e.g.1 http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/nov/14/happiness-index-britain-national-mood

Excuse me? Maybe Britain’s trying to pull a Bhutan and keep the populace happy with media splashes of Prince William’s wedding (though I think Jigme Wanchuk ranks as hotter). BUT gauging Britain’s happiness index to steer government policy sounds like candyfloss for a nation that’s cutting expenditure on education, and on housing benefits, to cleanse the poor from larger cities and get this, paying millions in compensation to nationals unlawfully ‘rendered’ to US prisons and tortured in cooperation with British intelligence. Apparently India intends to imbibe the happiness index. Well, a few are laughing.

e.g.2 http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0408-hance_barometer.html

I’m all for saving biodiversity. However, making overarching catalogues of Species and Their Status such as suggested seem reminiscent of Casaubon’s Dictionary of Mythologies in the Victorian novel, Middlemarch. As an environmentalist, would you be a function of an index/ of change? Why not use that money to fund local, sustainable initiatives to save said species? Mm?

e.g.3 http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgetingk/article/109155/how-to-gauge-your-middle-class-status?mod=bb-budgeting

Wow. I wonder how them middle classes would manage without that one. If one were to say, read and know, the chances of my functioning as an aware member of a nebulous middle class perhaps increase less than that of becoming a function, again…

I think we’re overemphasizing the Metre Gauge and overlooking the Broad Gauge here.

Friday, September 17, 2010

A Week

Monday
umm

Tuesday
hey

Wednesday
achha

Thursday
burp

Friday
hmm

Saturday
ah

Sunday
hee

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

L

Three
petals
dry
drain
one teardrop
to the lees